Live! Love! Laugh! Listen! Learn!

Hey. It’s been an awkwardly quiet time on the blog. I know, even right now I still don’t have an excuse. But I apologize and I’ll improve by trying to write at least one newbie series every month.

As you can imagine I’ve now settled into Athens, Greece after about 4-5months so all new things have now become old (pun intended..lol)

To the post of the day. I went to Franceeeee!!!!

Why France? I signed up for a week-long program at Burgundy School of Business (BSB) in Dijon, France. I thought it was a great opportunity to visit another part of Europe, you bet it was.

The adventure begins!

Day 1 (We move)

I set off on Saturday morning from Athens to France. There was no direct flight to Dijon from Athens. So first I touched down at Paris (actually first Rome, had a transit flight for an hour, I barely saw anything save for the airport staff, so I do need to visit Rome for real..yes!!). Landed at about 6pm Paris time (1hour difference from Athens) and took a 2-hour long train by 8pm from Paris to Dijon.

Train ride: I must say this was super comfy since I had prebooked on the SNCF website. At first though, I was worried about missing my stop as I was not exactly sure of the station (I thought it was a direct train to Dijon but there were several stops) and all the announcements were in French (This was the part where I wish I listened more in my French High School class. In my mind, I’m like hope I won’t get lost or get off at the wrong stop). Thankfully, there was a lady sitting in front of me who I showed my stop (via Google Translate), additionally the train wifi had a distance tracker so I could tell how far we had gone and how much time was left to get to Dijon, I only found this out after I had given myself some false panic attack.

I had the best AirBnB deal, my hosts were already waiting for me at the train station so it was an easy peasy ride home from there. I was so knackered from the long flight/train ride and carrying my heavy laptop bag (I really do need to learn to travel lightly)

Day 2 (Welcome, Dijon)

Next day was a Sunday and the weather was super rainy so I slept and slept and slept some more. And then hunger struck, I wasn’t quite prepared for this. I was now home alone and didn’t exactly have anything to cook. Rummaged the fridge and nibbled on a few leftovers from the night before (crepes, croissant, and what have you)

Day 3 (1st School day)

Almost missed the bus. In fact got on the wrong bus, was heading back to the same direction I came from. Hahaha…And then I noticed the signs on an oncoming bus and hurriedly got down from the wrong bus and got on the right bus. (covers face).

The lectures were quite enlightening, I took a good tour of the school and made loads of new friends including Africans who were surprisingly shocked that I could speak English well and not a word of French..oh well, I was equally shocked they could speak French so fluently and yet struggle with speaking English. I need to know Africa more…maybe plan an African tour🤔🤷🏼‍♀️

Getting around was pretty easy once I loaded my bus pass.

Day 4 – 5 (Settling in)

Foooddd!!! Finally found a Carrefour supermarket, got a few groceries and got back home in time to cook meatless pasta.Don’t blame me, I wasn’t sure what was what and I thought 1week was too short to invest in too much meat, so I supplemented with eggs.

I got off pretty early on Wednesday and even though I had all these deadlines pulling me back and forth I really wanted to do something more with my life. My AirBnB hostess offered me her bike, so I took a good ride around the neighborhood, got lost a few times and finally made it back home unhurt ( I had not ridden a bike in forever so I struggled a bit at the start)

Day 6 (Short trip to Beaune)

I went to Beaune, well spelled in French as Bourgogne💃🏾. This one was a super experience for me ‘cos I hadn’t done anything for myself, you should have seen my face in the mirror when I finally got on the train. I honestly almost canceled the trip because I had all sort of deadlines (both at school in Burgundy and school in Greece, honestly at some point I started regretting why I had signed up for the Exchange program). So I gave myself a deadline and just decided to structure my work better instead of getting worked up with analysis-paralysis. I finished up a draft of one of my papers and set out for Beaune. Gosh, what a beauty!!! These pictures don’t do justice honestly but I was really glad I consciously went out of my way to have fun by myself.

Beaune was only 20 minutes from Dijon so I got in at about 5:30pm, walked a lot around the city (It’s a really small one) and just took in the sight. I got hungry eventually and so took myself to eat at Le Carnot. Got back to Dijon at about 8:30pm and again my lovely hostess got me at the train station to home sweet home.

Finally had some meat

Day 7 (Last Day in Dijon)

Boy was I knackered from the long week. Got into BSB pretty early and tried to download all the necessary materials needed before getting off the campus..and got my certificate, yay!!! I took a final mini-tour of town before going home to crunch up books. Got back home early and got to finish my paper in time. In fact, I think getting out of my day-to-day also helped me get ideas to finish my paper.

Early day out. I’m glad I got up in time (I mean like 5:30a.m) Trust me I had snoozed alarms for the best part of the week, I was not sure I would get up in time. I guess the financial weight of missing my train had a toll on my undisciplined self and did a reset. Made it in time for my train at 7ish, and I set off from CDG to Gare Du Nord, Paris!!!

First settled into the hotel. And then my friend, Oge and I set out for a quick walk. Lafayette mall.. the grandeur of this architecture. After lots of window shopping and actual shopping (Oge bought one item..lol) we got exhausted and went back home before we set out for a night out (after a shitload of pizza)

Oh wait, before the tour, we went out for brunch at Chez Vouz. Arguably one of the best brunches I’ve had all for €24. I got so stuffed up, yet I couldn’t help myself from over-eating these soft amazing bread varieties (I’m a bread lover). What a day!!

Crushed my Paris Tour Bucket List and much more

Day 10 (Back to the Grind)

We outta here! My outbound flight was for 12 noon, and I had a test at school the next day, so I got some books in before getting ready for the airport. And chop, chop, chop. Landed in Athens before 5 (now that 1-hour time difference made it feel like time had flown a long way). Couldn’t wait to get home to my bed and just shower and sleep.

My 10-day visit to France eventually had me touring 3 cities: Paris, Dijon, and Beaune. Transportation was pretty organized, once I knew my stop it was easy to get around. My elementary French somewhat came to life (all I could say was merci, oui, non, bonjour, bonsoir…haha), and now I know Je me souviens.

Most of all, I loved that my mini-getaway helped me refresh and see beauty in the tiniest things. And that’s how I fell in love with France (don’t tell me you were thinking something else).

The End!

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We should all go somewhere, one of my classmates said. Huh, really, when, where, how? After weeks of planning, unplanning, and planning, we finally decided on Nafplio. And, off we went.

Are you wondering, where in the world is Nafplio again? Nafplio is seaport town in Greece and was the first capital of the Kingdom of Greece until 1834. Say what now? Yep you heard right, read up the full history here.

We set out at about 10:00 10: 45 a.m (I delayed everyone cos I was so drudgy, just couldn’t get up in time blame it on not enough sleep the night before. Hmm excuses.com, I’m more lucky the rest of the crew didn’t leave us), it took us 2 hours drive to finally get to Nafplio from Athens.

Nafplio is such a beautiful place, the weather was exceptionally good to us this weekend, the serenity by the sea side was incredibly sweet, and we made great company. Needless to say, we took tons of pictures our phones were begging to stop..haha! Nuff said.

Semi-hungry smileMe: Is the castle really in my hand? 🙂

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Hate is a strong word, yes but as much as I do hate these weevils, somehow they find their way into my beans (crying emoji). When I was much younger, I hated beans for this reason. My mum and sister would make fun of me telling me it was proteinous and part of enjoying the meal. I couldn’t just shrug it off, so I’d spend time separating the weevil from my beans even when I finally decided to eat.

But I’m not here to talk about bean weevil, it’s only a perfect analogy. I’m writing about faith and the unconscious and conscious things we do to wade off evil.

I brought in some local foodstuffs including beans from home (Nigeria) to Athens, Greece; they sell beans here oh, but in my over-preparedness, I had packed a lot of beans and in fact had my sister bring some more when she visited in December. In as much as the taste is really great and it saved me a few bucks, there’s something unruly about local beans – weevils. At first, I could control my irritation but these weevils recently got out of hand and literally took over my apartment. In my flatmate’s words, “Ahh, we now kill weevils like mosquitoes ”.

I had initially kept the beans to use for moi-moi (bean pudding) or akara (bean cake) later on, but never quite got to do this. Since this weevil infestation had gotten somewhat embarrassing, I decided to clean up, realized the beans had even got worse and finally got rid of the bad beans.

I still have some good beans, very little/minimal weevil infestation. So early one Saturday morning, I got ready to cook the rest of my good beans of course to avoid stories that touch (and more weevil infestation). As you can already imagine my weevil hatred, I literally picked up every bean seed and checked out for the ones with holes so I could remove the weevil in them. It took me about 30 minutes to do this for about 5 cups of beans (minimal weevil infestation indeed). This was when it occurred to me, I was willing to go through the pain of removing every single weevil I could find in my beans no matter how long it took me because of my hatred for weevil in my food.

Literally, I was willing to bear the pain to remove every single sort of “danger” to my food, because I wanted to enjoy and savor my meal when it was done, how much more my faith. How far can we go to remove every evil in the way of our faith?

In short, let us do more to protect our faith from evil by shielding our hearts and keeping it with diligence.

The bean weevil represents the thorns, distractions, evil, character flaws we can identify.

Picking out these weevils represents what extent we go to flee from these appearances of evil.

Keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. (Proverbs 4:23 KJV)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Hmmm dreams do come true. I’ll be honest the year didn’t quite pan out as I imagined but instead, exactly as He wanted.

At the beginning of this year, I remember saying that I wanted some time off work to breathe and find myself. I really wanted to be away and still be able to earn some money (talk about money matters). I honestly had no idea or grand plans as to how it was going to turn out. Oh scratch that I had grand thoughts of getting things done my way, I was torn between doing an MSc and an MBA, changing role to another company or starting a business. All I did was pray and commit the year. And He truly made all things beautiful in His time. I’m now studying for my MBA and also still found way(s) to make some money.

I was faced with a number of decisions and only during prayer did I learn and find my peace. I could go on and on but I’d just put it all together as what 2017 taught me.

So here’s my list of what 2017 taught me on:

Purpose: See I was very keen on finding purpose. In fact in my first year in uni, I went on a fasting/prayer spree to find purpose, but zilch nothing. This year, I learned a lot. My purpose is not a thing or an ambition. My true purpose is to seek God and find Him. I also learned how to seek a relationship and not religion. Being from Africa, a lot of things get attributed to spirituality and a lot of people follow the bandwagon with church activities. I’ve realized though that there’s so much more and now I’m daily reaching for the depth of love and relationship God created me for.

Finding self: I always had this idea that finding myself was somewhat far-fetched but finding myself is an everyday thing. Loving and valuing oneself is also connected to finding self. Little analogy: it’s like when you lose some money or you’re trying to succeed the feeling of accomplishment. I’m literally going to keep finding myself through different opportunities and life experiences.

Friendships:Growing up, I was usually the one without friends and my mum would keep asking where are your friends. Personally, it takes time for me to catch on to friends but once I know a good one, I try to keep them. My motto is doing unto others as you want to be done to you.

Last year, I mentioned what the gift of gaining new friends was. Oh, what joy when you have true friends. Let’s be frank here, I did lose some (or one or two) but I am thankful to my real friends, sisters, brothers, and glam squad. Shout out to y’all.

Waiting/Patience:Another quick analogy, I was praying one day for something I was losing peace over. See earlier that day I was really hungry so I made rice, but no matter how much hungrier I got I couldn’t eat before the rice was ready. In fact, I did try but it was hard and still undone so I couldn’t enjoy it, I literally had to wait. That’s exactly what waiting is about. If certain things are not in place no matter how hard we try we’ll have to wait. If we can wait to make sure food is ready before we eat how much more waiting to make sure things are in order for our lives. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying to sit still and do nothing, but you know that deep ish you want to change desperately, if you’re led to wait, then wait and hope happily. Food is more enjoyable when it’s done and well cooked, so is life.

Money: If you know me you’ll know I don’t like spending my money. Emphasis on my money haha who does. I guess I was following on the song if you no get money hide your face and hide my face I did. I declined opportunities ‘cause I couldn’t see the immediate ROI and was just hung on holding onto available cash. But I’ve learned, see money is really a means to an end, not the end. It’s a means of transaction, exchange etc. So rather than being bogged down with foreign conversions and what not, amma do right with it.

Disclaimer: I’m not wasting money upandan oh just making good use of money when necessary. Spending wisely.

Family: The gift that keeps giving. Again if you know me, you’ll know what a daddy’s girl I am. We may not agree all the time and not speak on the phone for a while but I just love the man. This year, we almost lost him he got so sick he was hardly himself. My dad is a very energetic young (old) man and to see him as a ghost of himself was just disheartening. I was practically helpless, much as I prayed I was mostly overwhelmed with fear. I had all sorts of negative dreams and ideas including thinking about my dad not being able to walk me down the aisle on my wedding day. But infact this sickness was for a reason, my dad is now saved and I’m grateful for his new life.

In addition, my sister got married so there’s a really big addition to the family.

Grace:2017 taught me grace. There’s a lot that happens and there’s a lot we plan to achieve and there’s a lot that do come through while some dont. Here, right there there’s a part grace plays. And that’s getting us to where we never even imagined and getting us through those difficulties.

In totality, I’m grateful for life and looking forward to smashing more goals/breaking new grounds. In the end, all things truly work together for the good of those who love God.